Gillian Flynn Books in Order (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects)

All of Gillian Flynn’s Books in Order!

Who is Gillian Flynn?

Gillian Schieber Flynn was born in 1971 in Kansas City, Missouri, the daughter of two professors. Judith Ann (née Schieber), was a reading-comprehension professor, and her father, Edwin Matthew Flynn, was a film professor. She studied at the University of Kansas, where she received her degrees in English and journalism, and later obtained a master’s degree at the Medill School of Journalism, at Chicago. Flynn wanted to be a police reporter, but discovered she had “no aptitude” for it. So she worked as a freelance before being hired at Entertainment Weekly where she worked for 10 years before being laid off in 2008.

Gillian Flynn began writing her novels in her free time when she was still working at EW. She has published three novels, all of them have been adapted for film or television, and a short story. She now worked mostly as a screenwriter and executive producer. She adapted her own novel Gone Girl, and co-written the movie Widows with Steve McQueen. She has also been the showrunner for the television series Utopia.

Gillian Flynn is married to lawyer Brett Nolan and the couple has two children.

How to read the Gillian Flynn Books in Order?

• Sharp Objects (2006) – Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims-a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story-and survive this homecoming.
• Dark Places (2009) – Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived-and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club-a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes-locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club-for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started-on the run from a killer.

• Gone Girl (2012) – On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media-as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents-the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter-but is he really a killer?
• The Grownup (short story, 2014) – A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the “psychic” visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan’s teenage stepson, doesn’t help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.

If you like Gillian Flynn’s books, you may also want to take a look at our Ruth Ware reading order, or the work of Tana French. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.